SwampCon, this was honestly an enjoyable time going and visiting different events and seeing all the cosplayers. I saw many aspects that relate to this class and all the topics we have covered so far this semester. Those aspects include simulation vs simulacra, cosplaying, database animals, consumerism, and many others.
Consumerism: This was present throughout the convention through many ways, whether it be us consuming and making purchases at the venues with the various plushies, posters, clothing, and other items that were present through the venues, the K-POP events where we are consuming the korean pop music genre and all the other venues and events where we are being general consumers.
Simulation and Simulacra: Similar to SAO I experienced the VR escape room which was a simulation of a real life escape room and was overall a cool experience as I do not have too much experience with VR technology. Now when it comes to Simulacra, the example of this that I am using would be those who were cosplaying as they were representing characters that do not exist in reality. This ties into consumerism as they bought their costumes (or made them) but overall a lot of people had really cool costumes and I managed to take a couple pictures with them.
Moe elements and Database: With a lot of cosplayers, we are reminded that a lot of anime characters have many moe elements and have their aspects pulled from a database of what is popular and sticks with people. These elements can include colorful hair, a certain style of dressing, and other aspects (depending on what audience the character is supposed to appeal to).
Derivative of works: The derivative of works was clearly evident at the artist venues, where they painted a lot of famous characters and were selling the artwork of those characters (there were some very talented artists in the venues) and many of these works definitely pandered to Otakus.
Fan culture vs Official Culture: While I don’t believer I saw anything that we could consider Official Culture, there was loads of Fan culture present throughout swampcon, including anime characters (and attempting to guess who were the characters I was seeing), anime painting, and other forms of merchandise.
Cosplaying: Costume play (otherwise known as Cosplay) was very evident throughout this event with so many people being dressed up as certain characters (it felt out of place not being dressed up as something or someone lol) and it was cool seeing so many people expressing themselves through their character.
Overall Swampcon was a fun experience and I really enjoyed going (although i'm down $65 to swamp con), although I didn’t dress up it was cool seeing so many people as some of my favorite characters from different animes and medias (such as Noctus from FF, Maki from soul eater, and L from Deathnote). One thing that I wish I did get was a swampcon shirt but they said they were giving them out and when I asked the guy where they were giving it away he said idk, so rip to not getting a swampcon shirt, but other than that very fun event.